Do we have weird eating habits on this country?

Have just returned from a hotel stay. Guy next to us had 2 plates of cooked breakfast. One for himself, and then one we assumed for someone else. However, he ate the first one, then the second, and then went for toast and cereal. I would have been sick. I think this attitude is really pre leant where people have paid for a breakfast, and are determined to eat every bit of it.

Then whilst travelling, all service stations are rammed full to bursting of people buying shed loads of huge bags of sweets. Everyone who passes in a car seems to be scoffing something.

Finally the cinema, how do people afford and eat all that shit? Burgers, dogs, fries, skins, nachos and they just sit there shovelling it in.

Now I am no skinny Minny at all, and am as fond of crap and goodies as the next person, but the nation seems to have turned into some kind of eating machine

Yes definitely. And I say that as a prime fat example of the weird eating habits.

There is a compulsion to snack all the time, as you say, in cars, in cinemas, in parks. As I type this I'm getting ready to take the dds (5 and 1) to meet friends at soft play. I've got a bag of grapes, bananas and breadsticks to take. Why? They've just had breakfast and we'll be getting lunch somewhere. It's madness.

In the early seventies my mum went food shopping once a week . She meal planned. And at end of week we eat bread and butter as a snack. She just wouldn't if popped out to buy extras before shopping day.

I was at the gym early this week when I watched a person with two dc put them into towels after they had been in the water and sit them in the female changing rooms and give them food to eat.

As I was drying myself I thought it was strange that the lady wanted them to sit and eat surrounded by sweaty naked bodies and clean bodies also naked - what a bizare thing to do.

Why not wait until they were all ready and go and eat in the cafe at the gym, the benches outside or wait until they got home. There are surely far nicer places to eat than the gym female changing rooms?

Small, hungry, tired wet children?if they were under 5, it's the easiest way to keep them quiet and content whilst she got sorted. Like all those experienced parents that meet their reception children with a bread roll or a banana.Children mostly don't care about their surroundings, it's all about the food.

Yup, I remember the 70s!I agree that it's daft that people eat huge amounts, constantly, especially as the majority are far less active than they used to be.I was just trying to think of an explanation for eating in a changing room, which is why I also assumed the children were pre-school.Most of the reception finish the snack in the playground, it never gets to the street.

We're you in Wales? Could have been my DH!!He's working away & been posting pics of his breakfast every morning (saddo!)The other day it was 2 slices of toast 3 fried eggs, beans mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon .... Plus fruit, cereal & toast.Enough food for an entire day!I remember years ago in Pizza Hut buffet I was stunned to see a guy go up & put an entire pizza on his plate.Greed, pure greed.

I never snacked as a child on a regular basis, just the transom ice cream on the beach in summer/ cake out with grandparents etc. but def not daily. It hadnt even occurred to me to constantly offer snacks to my children either. They have 3 meals a day, and do have a snack of fruit between 3-4 usually. A friend who visited was horrified when she found out they had breakfast that day at 9am and the next food was about 12.30. 3 1/2 hours without food, it's normal. ( they visited that eve), the same day she said hers of the same age had 7.30 am breakfast, with a snack roughly every hour until lunch, followed by lunch then snacks the same all afternoon.by 7pm they had 3 meals and 9 snacks! That's simply ridiculous. Even 9 apples a day isn't needed

I can remember moaning that I was hungry in the 70s and being told supper was only 3 hours ago and to wait. Imagine saying that to current teenagers! They seem to collapse in a heap of hunger induced weakness if we run out of crisps and only have pringles in the cupboard let alone the shock horror of having to wait for meals!

The other thing I notice as a teacher is the kids (secondary) buying masses of snacks in the corner shop near school and eating them all day. On my way to school at 7.30am I quite often pass kids eating crisps or sweets.

Now comparing this to being at school in the 90s, I quite clearly remember popping into the shop at the age of 16 on the way home from a GCSE exam and buying a packet of crisps. I rremember this because it was the first time I had ever done so.

The other thing I notice as a teacher is the kids (secondary) buying masses of snacks in the corner shop near school and eating them all day. On my way to school at 7.30am I quite often pass kids eating crisps or sweets.

Now comparing this to being at school in the 90s, I quite clearly remember popping into the shop at the age of 16 on the way home from a GCSE exam and buying a packet of crisps. I rremember this because it was the first time I had ever done so. I don't know whether it was just me, but it didn't really occur to me that it was possible to buy snacks- when I was young, whatever I ate was provided from home, apart from a few sweets, and I spent my money on clothes, tapes (!) and magazines. Nowadays it seems that DC must spend a vast proportion of their money on snacks.

I was watching a documentary the other day on YouTube, which stated that the 'snack' was a construct of food manufacturers, developed in the 70s, in order to be able to sell us more. Hence the Milky Way ads that said 'the treat you CAN eat between meals'. I don't remember snacks at all as a child (in the 60s). For years I wondered why Americans always seemed to eat popcorn when they went to the 'movies' - and then cinemas in the UK started selling the stuff too. I never picked up that habit, but am sure I would have done if I'd been born a few years later.

My theory is that the 'need' to snack has come about because of all the sugar in processed foods. It makes your blood glucose levels swing wildly up and down, creating a kind of false hunger when there is no actual shortage of fuel for your body.

Not being smug (have spent the majority of the past 30 years either obese or overweight) but I'm existing quite happily on 2 meals a day now, so long as the first one is a fat and protein filled breakfast I just don't get hungry for more, which is nice!